Together
by Teona
Summary: Cobb was stuck inside his subconscious, which - like a broken record - would repeat the same pictures over and over. Does he really want to pull out from there? One-shot.


**Summary: Cobb was stuck inside** **his subconscious, which -** **like a broken record** **\- would** **repeat the same pictures over and over. Does he really want to pull out from there?**

 **Genre: Stream of consciousness**

 **Pairing: Cobb / Mal**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the plot of Inception or any of the characters.**

 **Special thanks to JessicaRae95 for her beta work.**

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It is a big mistake to play tricks with your subconscious. Once the subject tries it, they never stop at all.

"Dream" versus "Reality".

Now it's hard to find the difference between them.

"You're waiting for a train - a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure".

"Cobb?" I find your eyes are filled with tears, and I can see the panic on your face.

It's always terrible to do something for the first time. But we will do it together. We have to hold hands.

Death in dream lets us transform our conscious into the reality.

Had I known that the idea was absorbed into your mind so deep and had infected you, I would have done it all differently!

I can not understand how much time I'm been here. There is no time. There is no eternity. Only an absolute zero. It has no intervals or frames that are able to split into several phases. It had lost its way. I jump from one picture to another, letting the stream of my conscious carry me its own way. Perhaps, I want to be stuck here?

Our life became a Surrealism. From the beginning, I had to guess to what ends we would arrive at when we started playing with our minds.

We don't know what goes on in our brains. We don't know the lines which we are capable of crossing. Really, we don't have any idea about ourselves at all.

Breaking other people's minds, I was laughing at my own intelligence, but before I had done the irreparable step - I destroyed you.

"But I thought it was for the best!"

Kicking yourself is a futile exercise.

I fall on snow and even don't feel the cold.

"Cobb? Cobb…"

I hear your voice. You call me again. Very tenderly this time. What is it? A memory or a created reality?

"Mal? Where are you?"

I feel your palm on my cheek. You preserve me from harm. I open my eyes and look at you. You haven't change a bit. Would I forget your face even a second? Would I replace you with someone else in my memory? We were living our lives and growing old together. Many couples don't have this chance. But we didn't have the most important thing. The reality. I could come back to dreams and stay near you. However, after every awaking I felt the emptiness. You left me. You walked away from me. How close am I to losing my mind now?

The dream is a little death.

You are at the kitchen, standing with the knife in your hand. What are you thinking about? What's going on in your head? Settle this finally, for the reality has lost its value.

We can touch different things to infinity and convince ourselves that the physical world around us is only possible from all of the variants that have been created by our subconscious. If you had slept so long, you invariably would have searched out the proof of the Materia's ephemerality.

Crashing through the brush, I push forward without knowing my purpose. It is pitch black below. However, I see a path - but I don't want to change the way. I feel that the only right road lies through this dense thicket.

Suddenly branches of the bushes start shaking, and then I hear sounds like a crunching and a rustling of leaves. I don't even prepare to be amazed when suddenly I see you near me. Not hurt, just frightened and confused with no knowledge of what you're doing here.

"Cobb?" You call me with fear in your voice and I take your hand. – "Where are we now?"

"I have no idea, Mal. Let's just see."

"I was… I was in another place. What is going on?

The fear becomes an accelerant, a strong push. So then, we wake up. Together. In the same bed.

Your head lies on my shoulder; my arm, with which I hug you, is too tired. In the darkness of our room, I see your big round eyes filled with tears. No more fear, only wonder.

"What was that?" You ask me. "I saw us in my dream. We walked through the woods".

"I know. I saw the same. Somehow, we wound up in each other's dreams."

Rising on your right elbow, you lean and whisper over me.

"How? We were not connected. We were just sleeping."

"I don't know" I answer sincerely.

That's probably when we didn't need the machine bundle anymore. Or maybe you unlearned to distinguish reality from dreams. I really cannot understand how it happened, but this was repeated again and again and again. It has probably turned on you by driving you insane and you found yourself in such desperate straits when you couldn't distinguish reality from fantasy, then limbo became your reality. I knew something was wrong with you. You just wouldn't admit it.

I destroyed your mind, got inside your head and planted an idea. You were possessed by an idea. This one simple idea that changed everything - the idea that our world wasn't real.

I will never forget the look on your face. And the way the wind blew through your hair, when you look down, sitting on the window sill. You were so beautiful. So adorable. Every minute of your existence. The reality became your madness.

I can't lose my illusions. I love them. I want to go in deeper and stay in my illusions. Leave my illusions to me.

Lying on the wet sand and hearing the waves on the coast - looking out of the corner of my eye at your figure by the water. You are hugging yourself tight and watching the sunset. The ocean is kissing your feet, and you are laughing, because it tickles you. And the bottom keeps falling out lately.

God, you are so real!

You drop to your knees in front of me and cover my face by your palms. I want you to kiss me, but your illusion is always so independent.

"Mr. Cobb, we have a business proposal for you."

The people in black suits are scaring you.

"What are you dealing, Cobb? What are you getting into?"

Things get heated.

"It's the military development." The tall dark man with the rock-like face gives me a file. "You can check the details."

I am looking at a steady stream outside, of grey buildings and scurrying pedestrians. In dreams, our possibilities are infinite. Why then does my subconscious give me such a miserable picture and such plain, uninteresting projections?

My leg slips off the curb, I almost stay on the roadway in the bright headlights of a limo that is approaching at great speed.

"Cobb?" You grab my hand and pull me inside a café.

All tables are free. There is no one here. The counter is empty too, although voices emanate from the storeroom.

I slip my hand into my pocket and touch your totem. Where is a reality? Where is a dream? Just go and check on?

Any session with time turns into something that I can profit from.

The main rule – don't allow yourself to be absorbed in the games.

"Mal, please, put the knife down". I grab your wrists, but hold on gently.

Your eyes are confused and brooding. Two little worry lines between your eyebrows.

You look at your hands, as if you don't realize how the knife ended up here.

"Uh, Cobb," You whisper burying your face in my chest. "We need to wake up."

Looking through the client's files, I search the required document. I need the numbers, the sums.

Through the office's window I see you distracting him with small talk. So I got in this deal, and you followed me. You always loved playing games. That's why, even whencommitting crimes in a dream, you think it is a play. But it is true, right? It is a trick the client won't see done for many a day. Or never.

"Cobb? You promised… Cobb! Cobb! You swore to me!"

The world lies in ruins. Our world that we have built with love. We did that for years. The bridge is broken. I can't get to you. If only I could walk on the air. But it's just a dream. And we are falling.

"Mal, forgive me".

"You promised me".

You are so far now. I would like to reach you. And hug you. So tight - the last time.

I see your eyes, and the tears in them. I'm so missing your palms on my cheeks. But it's just a memory. Do you remember I said never to use memories? I broke my own rule. And I have done it many, many times.

I wish more than anything, but… I can't imagine you, with all your complexity… all your perfection, all your imperfection.

I wanted to go further, you asked me to stop. My ego, however, outweighed everything; and my curiosity… uh, I was wondering, how far we would be willing to go forward. It wasn't so bad at first, feeling like gods. And when we wound up on the shore of our own subconscious we lost sight of what was real. And we saw how easily one could disrupt the balance, because the reality lost the value. Limbo became our reality. You were feeling a little left out. You and I… we didn't understand the concept that those hours could turn into years down there.

I want to hold you tight in my embrace… endlessly, enjoy your soft, silky hair… listening to your breath… catch your loving eye… and your smell… I want to smell that pretty hair of yours. My hands make a fist. I'm weak and incapable of make it possible for me to see you, feel you, touch you, delude myself. It's my punishment for what I did.

"Cobb, we can fix this."

You are so certain of your delusion.

You were certain there was nothing I could do… no matter how much I begged, no matter how much I pleaded. You wanted to do it, but you could not to do it alone.

"Come on, Mal. Step back inside so we can talk about this."

You drop your shoes, one is still hanging beside your big toe, but it fell down at last.

"No, Cobb. If you love me, you will do it. Don't you see that nothing is real! We are dreaming, but we have to wake up now."

I remember that evening in detail, though.

"You are just a shade. You are just a shade of my real wife."

I'd like to go home into a reality. But there is no one there. Neither you, nor children. But staying here is not the way to go. It's time to stop dwelling in dreams and fantasy, forgetting about the present and real life. No matter how good you feel in it.

And you are the best that I could do, but… I'm sorry, you're just not good enough.

It's so hard to let you go… and how scary it is…

"You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure."

"But it doesn't matter."

"How can it not matter to you where that train will take you?"

"Because you'll be together."

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 **I hope you enjoyed it :)**


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